


Sinking

by We_Band_of_Buggered



Category: Shameless US - Fandom
Genre: 4x05 spoilers, picks up right after the end of 4x05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 21:03:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/We_Band_of_Buggered/pseuds/We_Band_of_Buggered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This takes place right after the end of episode 4x05. Lip contemplates what has happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sinking

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive any errors. This was written quickly on my phone.

"Jesus fuck," Lip sighs under his breath. He's standing there in the hospital's wide corridor, that clinical stench bursting into his nostrils with every breath, hitting the back of his throat. All he can do is watch. The others- all of them- rush after Fiona as the officers escort her towards the door, but Lip stays. He stands frozen there with a pounding heart and a knot in his stomach that feels as though it'll never undo itself. It feels as though he's sinking, like the ground may as well be falling away beneath him; beneath troubled Debbie, beneath broken Ian, beneath vulnerable Liam. And Fiona? Well, if all she has is going to slip from her grasp, it'll be because she pushed it that way. 

The walls are so white that it almost hurts his eyes to look at them, and every noise blends into one, leaving him standing alone against a backdrop of the muffled din of conversations, telephones chirping from behind the desk like nails on a blackboard. And his own heartbeat hammers more dread into him, more despair. It all lets him sink a little deeper. Nurses pass him in what seems like a blur, clipboards in hand or pushing gurneys. It drags his mind back to the campus flash mobs, but like everything else it has been flipped. This time everything else passes by and Lip is the only one frozen. 

He keeps his gaze distantly on the others hurrying away. He watches until the police bundle Fiona out of the hospital's double doors and the others follow on a flurry of panicked pleads and protests. He imagines them outside, teary eyes fixed on the eldest Gallagher sibling as one of them- Debbie perhaps- exclaims "It was an accident! She didn't mean for this to happen!" Somebody else- maybe Kevin- would ask if there isn't some other way to resolve this situation and not one of them will think of Lip in that moment- think of him standing here almost dumbfounded before an increasing amount of worried glances from passers by. It won't even dawn on them that he's not with them because he couldn't bear to follow, to plead or protest, to try and save Fiona from arrest while a team of doctors fight to save the three year old life of his brother. His brother who's barely more than a baby; his brother who smiles widely and hasn't fucked up or been fucked over the way the rest of them have. 

His brother who overdosed on cocaine because their sister wasn't watching him closely enough. 

Lip staggers, practically dazed, to the nearest row of chairs. He sits there, eyes on the trembling hands he rests in his lap, and while the others do what they feel they need to outside, Lip sits there and waits for news, wondering how everything managed to go to shit so fast.


End file.
